In this extended abstract, I set out the key dimensions from my practice-based doctoral fieldwork which I will present at the NERD2GO conference. This research sought to answer the question: how can a Participatory Design process engage young people and lead to an understanding of their sense of agency? In this explorative study, I collaborated with a group of fifteen young people over the course of two years, investigating their ambitions, motivations and expectations for their future (post-compulsory education), and was situated in the young peoples’ high school classroom. The group of young people in this study belonged to a Prince’s Trust class, which provides an alternative means of gaining an educational qualification with an emphasis on teamwork, leadership, confidence and self-esteem. Within this study, a key methodological focus of mine was experimenting with blending the method of Participatory Video with the filmmaking technique Direct Animation, and transporting both of these into a Participatory Design context. Through a series of experimental Participatory Design workshops, the young people explored and expressed their emotional experiences of education through abstract and conceptual imagery, narrating their films with song lyrics. Here I was able to learn about their localised social and educational practices – observing what I term agency-in-action (McAra 2017).